By Bida Elly David
Citizens in Yei River County said the County is experiencing poor infrastructure as main highway annexing the town to Juba and Kaya started dilapidate losing shape due to continuous and heavy rainfall that left some cash crops eroded.
Over the past years, Yei River County has been known of experiencing both relief and convectional rainfalls in most of its parts annexing Juba and Morobo Counties.
The heavy downpour sometimes occur regularly for several hours blocking commercial and government services as most staff could be kept indoors.
The torrential rains accompanied by stormy winds irregularly flatten unproper structured buildings down the ground and kept learners under suspense by not turning up for classes.
The most irritating and discontenting part was the worst destruction of plantations due to excess amount of water remaining stagnant for quite long period.
Speaking to No.1.Citizen Daily Newspaper yesterday, Lubari John, a local farmer and a merchant narrated the difficulties they faced while clearing their gardens by pumping off gathered water to avoid soil erosion.
He said the highways annexing Yei Morobo and Kaya have developed bad shapes leaving heavy trucks stuck in muds. Adding that they have been working hard as individuals to ensure tentative passage for commercial goods from the villages to the town.
John further said the commissioner has tasked the community to mobilize themselves for manual exercise of opening the roads for temporary access through piling of potholes with some soil.
“Kaya Yei, Morobo and Yei Juba roads are currently in a bad shape. Vehicles cannot access Yei-Juba, Yei-Kaya Road since the heavy rain has totally spoiled them completely” he disclosed.
“Commissioner Aggrey in his level tried to mobilize the community to help fix some parts using mud. He mandated some engineers some government officials such as the payam directors to aid the opening of the muddy roads that have blocked passages of commercial vehicles for transportation,’’ he added
Aggrey Cyrus Kanyikwa, the Commissioner of Yei River County said recently he had presented a demand of assistance before the national government regarding the status of the roads in the County but feed back on the subject matter has not been positive.
The commissioner stated that he was forced to opt for second alternative by mobilizing the community and some County engineers to repair some of the potholes to enable movement of vehicles until official construction was carried.
Meanwhile Edward Bida, a resident of Hai Mahat attested the difficulties they face in transporting their ready crops from the production point to the consumption zone using bicycles as carriers.
He revealed that pushing the farm produce from the garden to the house was not balanced as their carriers could severally get stucked in the mud forcing them to offload goods down for segments.
“We use bicycles to transport our goods to our homes and markets. This heavy rain has spoiled most roads as bulky mud remained stagnant on the paths. We opted to carry our crops bit by bit to avoid sticking of our carriers in mud. We are calling on the national government to speed up the construction of Yei-Juba and Yei-Kaya roads before it jeopardize livelihoods,’’ he said